


A Year of Reading Dangerously

by damalur



Category: The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic - Emily Croy Barker
Genre: F/M, Recovery, Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 15:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2031090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damalur/pseuds/damalur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And, offscreen, Nora decides that "No where / Lives a woman true, and fair" is a load of utter garbage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Year of Reading Dangerously

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Odyle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odyle/gifts).



> Trigger warning for mention of sexual assault. Nothing graphic, but there is a very direct reference to canon events that I wouldn't want to take anyone by surprise. 
> 
> Anyway: LOTTE. Remember when you won that Help Japan auction years and years ago? And for years and years I've been like I WILL FINALLY WRITE YOU STORY and it never happened and then you mentioned that you wanted _Thinking Woman's Guide_ fic and I said I would have it done before you left for Europe and it _shockingly wasn't done_ and probably I imagine you lost all hope because, like, I got eaten by beards? Be hopeless no longer, for I FINALLY WROTE YOU STORY. I'm sorry. You're welcome. 
> 
> (P.S. Many thanks to [thirddeadlysin](http://thirddeadlysin.tumblr.com/) for beta duty!)

This is the story of how Nora put away John Donne, and what happened after.

-

By the beginning of summer, Kathy had started to make noises about Nora moving out, or at least finding something to do with her time other than lie about on the couch reading novels. Nora was not in the frame of mind to hear this; she had only returned the day before from a trip to the mountains, which had proved fruitless. On the way back she'd stopped at the university, thinking that perhaps retracing her steps from the beginning would force some kind of epiphany, but as usual, revelation eluded her. No one even noticed her return, except for Farmer Dahmer, who had stopped to make polite but absent small talk inquiring after her aura. When it became clear that her mind was even less engaged than Dahmer's, they had parted ways in a manner that more resembled two addlebrained children forgetting they were in the middle of conversation and then wandering away than anything more civilized.

And today, in a huff, she had left the house without reading material. She didn't have her sister's library card, either, and she wasn't much in the mood to shut herself indoors in the library. Her frustration wasn't really with Kathy, who was well within her rights to ask her husband's thirty-year-old daughter to contribute to the household, but with herself and her lack of progress. Which meant she really should be applying for jobs, which meant restaurant work—probably waiting, although perhaps she'd be able to pull something in a kitchen. 

She was in the posh walking district noting down names and addresses of dining establishments when the bookstore caught her eye. It was sandwiched between a chocolatier and an antiques broker, and it looked like something out of a storybook; in fact, the store's name was The Story Shop. There was a hand-carved wooden sign in the front window stating the hours, beside which Nora half-expected to spot a dozing cat. When she pushed the door open, she jarred a bell tied to the handle—of course she did.

The interior was dim and cozy, labyrinthine enough that it must have violated a dozen safety codes. The bookshelves butted against the ceiling and were arranged in no order she could discern; mid-century American poets ran up against textbooks on architecture, children's storybooks filled in the gaps in what looked like the section on true crime, and an entire row on mycology opposed music theory, classics of fantasy, and astrology.

She'd been running her fingers along the shelves as she browsed, and when the texture changed from the bumpy spines of broken paperbacks to a soft, buttery leather, she paused and pulled the book out. _The Princess Bride_ by S. Morgenstern, read the embossed cover. It was thick enough to use as a doorstop. She had seen the movie, of course, and with Adam, because one of his friends had recommended it as the perfect date movie, but if she'd known it was based on a book, she'd long forgotten the fact.

She was several dozen pages into a scene that involved packing, unpacking, and then repacking ladies' clothing, which she was just beginning to realize was a complicated metaphor for the relations between the countries of Florin and Guilder, when a noise startled her out of her trance. There was a woman standing just down the aisle. "Find something good?" she asked; her accent was foreign. Australian, maybe.

"Oh, god," said Nora, "what time is it? I was supposed to be looking for jobs."

"Just after six," the woman said. "How are you liking Morgenstern? He's an old favorite of mine."

Nora thought about that. "Convoluted," she finally decided. "Dense, very dense, but maybe unintentionally...romantic? I don't read much fantasy."

"No? That's a shame, some of my favorite books are fantasies," said the woman, in a way that suggested her list of favorite books was several thousand entries long. She was Nora's age or maybe a little younger; short, friendly-looking, with thick chestnut hair and a matronly cardigan over a too-short dress. Nora liked her immediately.

"What was the last thing you read?" the woman asked.

"Oh, I don't...it was a book about calculus," Nora confessed. "Of the type written for idiots."

"Oh, now that's interesting. I can manage arithmetic well enough to keep my books, but any kind of higher mathematics goes over my head."

Nora climbed to her feet, her finger automatically marking her page in the Morgenstern. "You're the owner?"

"Owner and sole employee, I'm afraid. Actually…" The woman narrowed her eyes and gave Nora a considering look. "You said you were in the market for a job?"

"I am. I was looking at restaurants—I've worked before as a sous chef."

"But you love books," the woman said.

"Oh yes," Nora replied, a little helplessly.

"How would you like to work here? I've been looking for someone to mind the store when I have to be away. I'm away...quite often, actually, but I do turn enough of a profit to pay you a decent salary."

"You don't even know my name," Nora said.

"I don't, do I?" said the woman. "I'm sorry, I'm Lacey." She offered her hand.

"Nora," said Nora, and shook it. "And yes—you know what, yes. I would love a job."

And that was how Nora was hired.

-

There was little required of Nora at The Story Shop. She stocked new purchases a handful of times, but there never seemed to be a shortage of books on the shelves; instead, she spent time putting out new displays in the front window, dusting, talking to Lacey (when she was in town) or the smattering of regulars (when she wasn't), and reading. She read incessantly, more than she had since those long, indolent days as a teenager.

The shop opened at ten; by her second week of employ Nora had a key, and was allowed to come and go as she pleased. She arrived at half-past nine, did a bit of cleaning, and checked the messages. At ten promptly she unlocked the door. Sometimes she left it open for the breeze—the air conditioner in the shop was finicky, and by noon she had sweat beading on her forehead and upper lip as she read at the counter. She sat most often on a tall barstool, with her book propped up on the counter in front of her; sometimes she would set her book down with her finger inside to mark her place and stare at the stacks or out the window. When she looked at the stacks she thought of Aruendiel, who had this many books and more in his tower room. When she looked out the window, she thought about home.

As June sizzled into July she plowed through a series of survival manuals and then a novel called _An Imperial Affliction_ by a Mr. Peter Van Houten. That one made her think; when she finished, she wasn't sure if she had liked the ending or not. She refreshed herself with a series of children's books about a city with no people. July's window display was particularly eclectic.

Kathy stopped asking her if she was planning on moving out. The regular payments of rent had gone a long way toward repairing that relationship. 

The one thing Nora did not think about was magic. There was still something too painful about that, about losing what small skill she had worked so hard to gain. Aruendiel was—"wonderful" wasn't at all the word—well. He was certainly something, but Nora had the wistful thought that he wouldn't be half so _something_ to her if he'd refused to teach her how to work a spell.

You're on even footing now, she told herself firmly. Pull yourself together.

But she didn't go looking for any cracks between worlds; her lumbering resolve had gone dormant. It was hard to _think_ in the summer heat, anyway, when the air was thick and it was ninety degrees in the shade. She found herself with the finger in her book as she stared into the distance more and more often. She wasn't absent like Farmer Dahmer was, but her mind felt like a circus of cats—absolutely impossible to corral or direct.

She read a book called _Fifty-Three More Things to Do in Zero Gravity_. It was highly explicit; fortunately, she knew a levitation spell.

-

The days slid together and Nora slid under. In a brief burst of energy she returned to the realist novels she'd devoured immediately upon her return to this world, but halfway through _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_ she lost interest. Realist? Was that what she wanted? Aruendiel had killed his wife—he would fit right in with the rest of Thomas Hardy's stock. What was she thinking?

She traded the Hardy for a pamphlet on domestic abuse. One night, when both of her sisters were asleep, she went into the bathroom, locked the door, and read the list of warning signs to herself in front of the mirror.

 _Has he threatened to physically harm you?_ Well, no.

 _Has he physically harmed you?_ No.

 _Does he verbally belittle you?_ Well—yes, to that one, but it was more in the manner of a academian berating a pupil for sloppy thinking. Nora's advisor on her undergraduate honors thesis had behaved in much the same way.

 _Does he attempt to control where and with whom you spend time?_ Be honest, she told herself. There had been the incident with the boots, but Nora wasn't making excuses for him; he had behaved as her patron in a world with totally perverse social mores, and he had always, always backed down when she'd stood her ground, even if he hadn't understood her reasoning.

Definitely not abusive, Nora concluded. She'd had enough of that bullshit for a lifetime, and unlike certain—others, with Aruendiel, she always knew what she was getting. He wasn't going to ensorcell her or steal her mind away; he wasn't going to force a pregnancy on her; he certainly wasn't going to trap her in marriage against her will. Frankly, the reverse was far more likely.

And Nora was still, technically, married herself. She looked down at the ring on her finger. There were stretches of time now, hours or nearly whole days, when she forgot about it entirely, but then she would remember again. It made her feel trapped. It made her feel _threatened_ , and here, now, without access to power or grimoires, she had no way to even teach herself defensive measures.

She ended up burying the pamphlet in the trash under a bag of used cat litter and some banana peels. Instead of going back to Hardy, she plowed through all of Harriot Vayne's books—there were many at the shop, none at all in the library—and _A History of Damar_ , which took a rather alarmingly colonial turn in the last third but which featured many more dragons than Nora remembered from other histories. It had to be a farce; but—this was the funny thing—it didn't _seem_ like a farce.

Summer turned to fall. Nora slept later, went to bed earlier, ate less, and was consumed with listlessness. Her hope had fled; there was not even that dormant seed to sustain her. She lived in fear that one day she would wake up and take the book from her nightstand and open it up to find the innards meant nothing, that they slipped from her grasp like sand, like dust, like dirt. The fantasy of Aruendiel and that levitation spell did nothing; and then Aruendiel meant nothing; and then Nora became clockwork, an automaton who woke up and went to work and came home and went to bed and felt not at all. He would have been envious.

-

She met Lacey's husband halfway through October and _On the Use of Mirrors in the Game of Chess_ , the latter of which she understood perhaps one word in every three. The shop was battened down for the evening but she had yet to lock up; with no particular place to be, and no particular time not to be there, Nora had gotten lackadaisical about closing. She must have been so absorbed in her book that she didn't hear the bell jingle, because when she happened to glance up while turning a page, there was a man standing in front of her.

"Oh!" said Nora.

"Hello, dear," he said. He was short, magnetic, and Scottish. "You must be Miss Fischer. Lacey's told me all sorts of things about you."

"And you're...Mr. Gold," Nora said slowly.

"Indeed I am."

Nora took her time locating a bookmark. When she turned back to him, she said, "I actually prefer 'Ms.' Ms. Fischer."

"Ah," he said. "My apologies. I'm afraid I can be rather...old-fashioned. Or so my wife tells me."

He was studying her; his eyes reminded her a little of Euren the Wolf. In fact, he in his entirety reminded her a little of Euren the Wolf, in that they were both slight, grey, and dangerous.

"I have a book that I would like you to obtain for me," he said. "As a favor."

"I—of course," said Nora. "If you give the title, I'll do my best, although Lacey takes care of most of the ordering."

 _"A Guide for the World's Traveller,"_ said Gold.

Nora wrote the title down on a scrap of paper. "Who's the author?"

"I'll leave that to your discretion. Good day, Ms. Fischer." 

"...What?" said Nora. It was not her finest moment. She stared after him, agog, as he disappeared in the back; but when she went to find him, he wasn't in with the overstock at all, nor the back alley used for deliveries. Perhaps there was a hidden door between the bookstore and his antiques shop—maybe behind those curtains on the wall.

-

Maybe it was because the challenge of finding Gold's book woke her, just a little, from her lethargy, or maybe it was simply because now that she had lived the alternative, Nora had no will to simply exist; whatever the cause, she started dreaming again.

In her dreams, she was beautiful and certain. She was a queen in her castle, petted and polished, she was a bird in a gilded cage and no matter how long the door stood open, she did not spread her wings, preferring to sit on her perch and warble her sweet, glassy songs…

She was in a vasty ballroom, so large that she could not see the ceiling, so filled with people that she never saw the same face twice. Beyond her was a man, a tall, handsome man, with fine features and pale eyes; he was being led away from her, and Nora was sure, so sure, that they were taking him—that they were taking him to do things to him—but she could not reach him through the crowd—

She was in her room, here, in her world, with her sister asleep in the other bed, and Raclin was there, too. He was raping her.

Nora woke up screaming. She was aware first of sound, and then of the ring, so tight on her finger it made her claustrophobic, and then of Leigh's hand on her shoulder. Her sister was shaking her. "Nora! _Nora!"_ She sounded frightened.

Nora shut her mouth and worked hard not to vomit. She could feel the bile rising in the back of her throat, but she clamped her jaw shut and breathed through her nose. Leigh's face was pale in the shadowy room; her hand was still on Nora's shoulder, grip tight enough that her fingernails bit into Nora's skin even through fabric.

"Are you okay?" Leigh whispered.

"I—" Nora said. "I'm—" The words wouldn't come. Words, words, words; she suddenly remembered a character in an old musical her mother had liked shouting, _Words, words, words, I'm so sick of words!_ Nora had never been sick of words before, had never had words fail her so thoroughly, but now there was nothing she could say.

After a moment, Leight said, "Here, move over." She went back to her side of the room, and then she came back and turned on Nora's bedside lamp. Nora squinted automatically and saw that Leigh was holding a book.

"A novel?" Nora said, surprised.

"Oh, be quiet, it's for school. I'm not going to suddenly have my head in the clouds all the time like you or Ramona." She opened her book to the marker and cleared her throat, and Nora realized that Leigh intended to read to her.

"Hang on, I can't remember...got it. _'Where, Jane?'"_ Leigh read. _"'To Ireland?'_

_"'Yes—to Ireland. I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now.'_

_"'Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is rending its own plumage in desperation.'"_

Nora's throat had tightened again, but she didn't say anything, only settled a little closer to her little sister. Leigh leaned her head against Nora's; her knees were pulled up to provide a resting place for her book, which was one of those nicely-bound hardbacks that was probably part of a 'publisher's classics' line. She'd lost her place, and had to stop and run her finger down the page until she found the line.

 _"'Jane, be still,'"_ Leigh said. _"'Don't struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is rending its own plumage in desperation.'_

_"'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.'"_

She must have inadvertently made some noise, because Leigh stopped again. "Nora?" she said. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Nora said. "No, but I think I've read this one before."

-

At any rate, looking for Gold's book kept her waking hours busy. She started by looking online—Amazon, eBay, all the usual places—and then she went through all the specialty websites Lacey had bookmarked on the monstrous old PC they used for keeping the shop's books and ordering inventory. Nora found a lot of close misses and absolutely none with that exact title.

The next time Lacey was in town, Nora made a point of asking her help. "I haven't had any luck," Nora said. "Mr. Gold didn't tell me the author, either. Would you mind asking him?"

"I'm so sorry, Nora, he's away on business," Lacey said. "I'm sure it isn't that important, though. If he really wanted it, he would have tracked it down himself instead of pushing it off on you. I wouldn't worry."

But Nora did worry. The worry was a nice change; it almost felt like caring.

Fall faded to winter; over Christmas break, the whole coast was hit with a surprise ice storm in the middle of the day. Nora was at work, but she had plenty of sandwiches and no particular inclination to go home, so she went digging in the back until she found an electric kettle and a tin of tea sachets—there were an astonishing number of oddities in the back of the book shop, most of which looked like they had spilled over from Gold's next-door antiques store—and made herself a cup of tea.

She took her cup of tea to the front, leaned back in her stool, and flipped open a slim volume called _The Dynamics of an Asteroid._ Algebra had caught her interest just after Thanksgiving, and with a lot of patience she'd managed to work her way up to _Calculus for Dummies_ after a weekend reviewing first Ramona's and then Leigh's math textbooks. Most of the proofs in _The Dynamics of an Asteroid_ flew over her head, but the book was elegantly written all the same, with a sort of cutting simplicity that almost let her touch that vast, shining view of the universe through which magic trickled.

When she finished, she sat looking out the window. Thick sheets of ice coated the glass now, and through the distortion there wasn't much to see beyond the flurry of white. There was a draft seeping in from beneath the door. It never snowed like this with the Faitoren; the winters with Ilissa and Raclin meant fires and furs, stifling heat, and pageantry. The only snowfalls were light and enchanting, not this nasty, biting blankness that would turn to slush on the sidewalks as soon as the sun broke.

Nora set aside _The Dynamics of an Asteroid,_ picked up _The Disappointing Child_ (by Doctor Beverly Hofstadter; on the whole, Nora found the extensive author's biography more interesting than the prologue, which was the only part of the book she could bear to read), put that down, and went to make herself more tea. Maybe it was time to try Tolkien again. No; she hated Tolkien, surely she hadn't changed _that_ much.

She'd promised to take her sisters shopping for last-minute gifts on Christmas Eve. Leigh tried to back out, but Ramona applied her powers as a little sister and soon enough they were out the door, bundled into their father's car and driving slowly towards the mall. Nora still wasn't quite used to driving again—everything passed by so quickly. She'd give a lot to see Aruendiel behind the wheel of a car, though. Had he driven, when he'd been here before? Would he ever be willing to come back? He could meet Ramona properly, and introduce himself to Leigh. She had a feeling Leigh would dislike him without even giving him a chance.

They parked outside of a department store. Ramona bounced in front of them, and Leigh trailed her; Nora followed behind them both, trying to keep an eye on them even though Ramona stopped at everything and Leigh kept trying to bolt to the men's tie section because the first item on her list read _Tie for Dad_.

"Oh, look!" Ramona said. "Make-overs! We should all—"

"No," said Leigh.

"Come on," Ramona said. She'd managed to get her hands on a sample lipstick and one of the disposable appliers, but she was paying more attention to making faces at Nora and Leigh than she was to putting it one, and she ended up with a lopsided red smear across her lips.

"For crying out loud," Leigh said, and took Ramona's chin in one hand. She used a thumb to wipe along Ramona's lip line. Ramona laughed and smacked her lips, and Leigh grinned back and wiped her finger on her jeans. Nora had a sudden vision of them as they would be at twenty, at forty, at sixty; she would miss that, she would miss—all of their lives, everything they had the potential to be, when she went back to Aruendiel's world.

"Your turn, Nora," said Ramona.

"I...think that color's a little bright for me," Nora said, diplomatically. Ramona had chosen a cherry red; it looked cute on her, girlish against her otherwise bare face, and cutting on Leigh, who had just finished testing it on herself, but Nora had historically preferred more neutral.

"Nope," said Leigh. "It's Christmas, everyone gets red. Besides, it'll look good on you." She pulled Nora over, steadied her hand against Nora's cheek, and brushed the wand over her lips. "There. Check your teeth."

Nora bent over the mirror on the counter and ran her tongue over her teeth obediently. Leigh had done a good job, better than Nora would have expected, and she was surprised to find that her sisters were right; the red did suit her. And why not? She had faced down princes, and kings, and wizards, and demons. Red could be her color.

"You know," she said, "you're both right. About the red, I mean."

"Of course we're right," said Leigh. "Does that mean you're buying?"

"Oooh, Nora, it is on sale." Ramona held up the sign.

"We're supposed to be shopping for Christmas presents," Nora said, but she already had her billfold out. She and Leigh let Ramona carry the little striped bag. Leigh bought the tie she wanted, but other than that they didn't get much shopping done at all. They had hot chocolate and listened to the children's choir that had set up in the middle of the atrium, they wandered around in a calendar store and showed each other the most ridiculous calendars they could find (and agreed that 'Nuns Having Fun' was the best), they wasted a lot of time and even more words and by the end of the day Nora's throat was hoarse and she still didn't stop talking.

"At least I did most of my shopping last month," Leigh said. "Aren't you glad I made you buy most of your stuff in advance now?"

"No," said Ramona.

"Liar," said Leigh.

 _"I_ am," said Nora, and she budged her way between them and draped her arms around their shoulders. 

"You probably bought books for everyone!" Leigh said.

"Maybe I did," said Nora, unrepentant. She hadn't; in fact, only Ramona was getting books, and that was because Tolkien had stuck in Nora's head and wandered around until it met up with the memory of Ramona reading about Harry Potter.

"Snob," said Leigh, but she leaned her weight into Nora's side.

They went home in the early evening; Kathy was making dinner "just for family," and Nora wanted to call her mother before it was much later. The dinner was better than tolerable, and when the dishes were finished and Kathy and their father were drinking wine and talking by the Christmas tree, Nora and her sisters piled onto the couch to watch _Labyrinth_. Nora fell asleep halfway through. Her dreams were not troubled; Aruendiel was standing in front of her, manipulating three silver orbs with one hand.

"Stop that," Nora said. "It looks ridiculous."

"It does not," Aruendiel said. "I'll have you know I once brought an entire court to a halt because—" He dropped one of the orbs; it vanished into the floor, and, like a cat, Aruendiel took great pains to make it look like that was what he'd intended to do all along.

"I wonder," said Nora, "if when we're done with magic, you would mind teaching me to sword fight."

"Women don't use swords," Aruendiel grumbled. "And there isn't enough time to fit that in with all your other lessons and the cleaning, and I'd have to find a sword to fit your hand. It isn't as easy as I make it look, you know."

Nora grinned at him. "You'll have to find someone else to clean, then," she said.

-

By the new year, she found herself longing for verse again, but she resisted the urge in favor of Liz Lemon's _Dealbreaker,_ which fit the sort of feisty mood she suddenly found herself in. She was wearing the red lipstick a lot; Aruendiel wouldn't recognize her.

She'd abandoned the internet entirely and was now calling individual dealers in search of Gold's book. Over and over she heard the same litany: "You don't know the author?" "Sorry, nothing by that name." "Have you tried looking online?" The rest of the world seemed convinced Nora was a delusional idiot looking for a book that had never existed in the first place. Nora was starting to believe the rest of the world was correct.

In a fit of desperation she took down the shop's copy of the yellow pages and flipped through until she found the section on book dealers. All of the listings were for chains or used paperback exchanges; Nora heaved a dramatic sigh and decided it was time to make use of the amenities of the present location and order a pizza.

As she flipped towards the back, the phone book fell open to 'F.' There was a large advertisement in the middle of the page: MADAME MANDRAKE'S MAGICAL EMPORIUM. In smaller letters underneath the services were listed: _Palms read — fortunes told — treasures bought and sold._ And then, in a new script:  SPECIALIZING IN RARE BOOKS.

Well, Nora thought, at least she'd be able to report that she'd exhausted _every_ possibility. She picked up the landline and punched in the number. 

Whoever was at the other end let it ring for a long time; she was on the verge of hanging up when there was a click and then a throaty woman's voice said, _"Hello?_

"Hello?" Nora echoed.

 _"Hello back,"_ said the voice.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm—I saw your ad in the yellow pages, and it said you specialized in rare books?"

 _"Do we? Well, I see no reason why we shouldn't. Let me track down a pencil and some paper—no, Tiger, down! Down. Off the counter."_ There was a low grumble that sound as though it came from a very large dog. 

_"Very good,"_ the voice said. _"Title of book?"_

"'A Guide for the World's Traveler,'" Nora said, reading from the top of her now-extensive notes.

_"Author of book?"_

"I don't know," Nora said. "That's part of the problem."

 _"Mmhmm. Author: unknown,"_ said the voice. _"Very good. Your order will be shipped to you in three to fifty-three days. Thank you for your business. Good-bye."_

"Wait—" Nora said, but she was speaking to the dial tone.

She added a new line to the notes: _Madame Mandrake's. No luck, DO NOT INQUIRE FURTHER. Probably a scam._ She had a vague thought to type up all of the places she'd contacted as a guide for future rare purchases; maybe she could make it into a binder. At least something productive would come out of this unicorn hunt.

January and February were quiet; she plowed through _17,011 Things a Princess Must Know_ and found it so instruction that upon finishing she turned back to the beginning and started it over again. Ramona entered a period of intense infatuation with hobbits. Leigh took first place at a forensic chemistry competition and announced her desire to become a pathologist. 

There was a flurry of customers just before Valentine's Day, though—apparently quirky books were "the 'in' gift this year," or so Nora heard from a harried man looking for a gift for his wife. "Her mother just got sick, though, so I'd like to do something really special for her this year. She always buries herself in reading when life gets hard, so I thought, maybe on top of the ski trip, I could find her something…" He shrugged and flushed, a little embarrassed, and finished, "Something spectacular."

Nora furnished him with _My Mother's Daughter_ by Dinah Laurel Lance and a lovely illustrated edition of _Watership Down_ , which he mentioned was one of his wife's childhood favorites. "She likes poetry, too, but I don't know anything about poets," he confessed, and Nora, unable to resist, added a slim volume of Donne to the top of his stack before she sent him home.

Donne; Donne, and algebra, and her sisters. Wishes and peanut butter and mice…

By April she was taking notes again in earnest—fanciful notes, notes written in symbols and codes, notes which explained mechanics that worked in some worlds and failed in others. She spent a lot of time reasoning, both backwards and forwards, from the basic set of principles with which Aruendiel had provided her. Maybe it wasn't verse she missed at all; maybe she had only missed spellcraft. There was a precision there to put even the strictest meter to shame.

She still couldn't shake the notion that there was something she'd forgotten—or something she was near to discovering. The feeling nagged at her; she stayed up later and later, scribbling in a notebook purloined from one of her sisters, trying to incorporate her newly acquired calculus in ways that made sense. Forcing her mind down those unfamiliar paths was exhausting, like trying to make sense of the world through a pair of glasses that inverted everything she saw. She was so close—

The phone rang. She picked it up absently, attention still caught between the lines of her notebook paper. "Hello? Fischer residence, Nora speaking."

_"Nora? Oh, thank god. Nora, it's Adam—"_

"Who?" Nora said. She had invented what appeared to be a location enchantment. There was really no way to tell if it worked, of course, but she wondered if she couldn't use it as a foundation to chart supernatural phenomena.

There was a pause. _"Adam,"_ he said. _"Don't you remember? Oh, sweetheart, do you have brain damage?"_

"No," Nora said. "And I'm sorry, but I don't have the time to talk. I'm busy with something important." She set the phone back in its cradle. Maybe she'd have better luck with Google Maps.

-

Still, it took her by surprise when the book arrive one early day in May. It was wrapped in plain brown paper and addressed to Nora Fischer, care of The Story Shop. Nora tore into it with no idea what it could be; she'd never gotten mail at work before.

The back was a rich, buttery-soft leather that gave her no hint of what might lay within. She flipped it over and read the letters stamped into the book's front: _A Guide for the Worlds Traveler. By Micher Samle._

Lacey blew through at that exact moment, shoving a book into her purse and fixing her earrings. "I'll be back next week, Nora, but give me a ring if you need anything—Nora?"

Nora, dumbfounded, could only think to say, "Mr. Gold's book is here."

"His book?" Lacey said. "Oh gosh, that finally came? Keep it. I think he meant for you to have it anyway. Rent check's in the mail, that shipment of picture books should be here tomorrow or the next day. I think that's everything. See you later, and honestly, really do call me if there's anything you need."

The bell jangled behind her. Nora's fingers were still clutching the thick book; she unpeeled her hands and looked at the cover again. Traveler of the worlds, not traveler of the _world_. She'd been typing the title into all of the search engines wrong.

"Worlds," Nora said. "Worlds, wishes, mice and—oh. _OH._ Peanut butter!"

She went straight out the door without bothering to lock it and had to turn around and go back when she was five minutes outside of town. It was a clear, sunny day, still early, and the highway stretched out in front of her; her thoughts occupied her so thoroughly that she couldn't have gotten to the campus more quickly if she'd wished herself there. Although—seven hours without a bathroom break was a bit much. She stopped in Virginia for a donut and a tank of gas.

Somehow, thanks to that ineffable sense that had led her back here, she knew exactly where to find Farmer Dahmer. He was sitting on a bench outside of the library, wearing his faded plaid, with his usual sheaf of papers spread across his lap. When Nora stopped in front of him he looked up, and his expression of affable absentmindedness dissolved into excitement.

"Oh!" he said. "It's you! Have you used all your wishes? I can't recall."

"Neither can I," Nora confessed. "I'm so sorry, but I don't think we've ever been properly introduced. I know you're Micher Samle. My name is Nora—I'm a friend of Aruendiel's."

"A friend of Aruendiel's?" he said. Those eyes sharpened. "You don't say."

"I do. A friend and a student. That's why I'm here to see you, actually," she said, suddenly inspired. "Aruendiel and I have...fallen out of touch, and I was hoping you'd be willing to continue my education."

"Is that so?" He collected his notes and weighed them down with a book. His movement was brisk, almost comically so, but Nora saw that he got the job done. "I haven't had a student in a very long time. Longer than you can imagine. May I have the truth, please?"

"I left," Nora said. "And now I'd like to get back."

"And?"

"And I want to do it under my own power."

Dahmer— _Samle_ —stood up, forcing Nora to take a step back. He wasn't as tall as she was, but when he leaned forward to inspect her features, she had to force herself to stay still. "How," he said, "is your head for algebra?"

"Good," Nora said.

"And for allegory?"

"Better," said Nora.

"And your intended course of study?"

"Magic, of course," said Nora, as though it were perfectly self-evident.

 

 

 

**_An epilogue:_ **

He was sitting by the fire with his leg propped up on a stool when she went to find him the evening of her return. She had a bundle under one arm, and she dropped it unceremoniously into his lap.

"What," said Aruendiel, "is this?"

Nora dropped into the seat beside him and cracked open her own book. "It's a present. For you," she added, in case he decided to be difficult. "Open it."

He narrowed his eyes at her but peeled back the cloth anyway. She'd had to wrap it in one of her old shirts, since she hadn't thought to bring anything better with her.

His English had started to slide away from him in her absence; he had to work at the sounds, but after a moment he read aloud, _"The Complete Annotated Works of Jane Austen."_

"You're welcome," said Nora, grinning; and she opened her Donne and began to read.


End file.
